


the secret to happiness (is releasing expectation)

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Category: The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conversation, Gen, Post-Movie(s), Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 03:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9052768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: It was strange, how quickly he’d come to realize that the man he’d spent most of his life hating for what had happened to his parents was just another lost soul like any other, beneath the deadliness and the trappings of immortality.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Themistoklis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/gifts).



> Written as a treat in Yuletide 2016. Because your prompt about a fixit fic where the 37th didn't actually betray them caught my attention. Sorry I couldn't fit the other two in; but as you said you'd be okay with leaving one of them out, I went ahead and uploaded it to Madness. I do, however, envision them all happily-familying it for the forseeable future. :)

“So,” Kaulder said, his voice a low, thoughtful rumble. “Got a question for you.”

Dolan the 37th looked up from his journal, where he had scribed the last few words of the account of Kaulder and Chloe’s trip to Finland to root out the last of Belial’s original coven. There hadn’t been many; it had been a brief, if eventful trip, so they hadn’t brought either him or the 36th along for logistics as they sometimes did on their longer trips now.

Dolan had expected to miss going along, but he’d found he’d missed their presence more. Particularly Kaulder’s. It was strange, how quickly he’d come to realize that the man he’d spent most of his life hating for what had happened to his parents was just another lost soul like any other, beneath the deadliness and the trappings of immortality. The eight hundred year-old warrior looked particularly serious tonight, seated on the couch in his luxurious apartment with a glass of expensive alcohol cupped between his fingers.

“Sure. Go ahead,” he said, absently clicking his pen.

Kaulder gave the pen an amused look; he’d teased him before about using a more modern writing implement, yet choosing to keep the same old style of journals. Dolan was looking forward to the look sure to be on the immortal warrior’s face when he brought him the first of the truly ancient journals to decipher for the scanning project Dolan intended to implement. There were consequences to digitizing the records as well; Heaven forfend computer file storage went the way so many technologies had over the course of Kaulder’s long life. The simpler things tended to endure.

Kaulder’s voice was slow and deliberate as he replied. “Been thinking some more about everything that went down in New York. About the way Belial got the drop on the kid, and knew to get to Chloe’s friend before we could. And I figure, it could have gone one of two ways. They could have been watching the Dolan since long before I came back from that mission; he wouldn’t have been hard to find. And they could’ve tracked Miranda from Chloe’s bar to make sure she wouldn’t be a resource, the same way they tried with Chloe, and watched the apartment to know when to place that call.” He paused there, shifting in his seat, and met Dolan’s gaze. “Thing is, though. Occam’s razor.” 

His eyes were flat and cold as he spoke the last few words, his entire demeanor projecting the sort of intensity Dolan imagined a lot of witches had seen in their last moments. The sudden shift took him off guard, and he was swallowing before he’d realized how guilty his reaction probably made him look, mouth drying up and palms prickling with sweat.

Kaulder wouldn’t be asking if he didn’t know _something_. And Dolan couldn’t imagine that that 'something' would be very good for his health if he denied it. No point evading it, then.

“You’re wondering if one of the Axe and Cross betrayed you,” he said softly. “As they did in other things. And there was only one of us here when Chloe arranged to meet her friend.”

Kaulder inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Got the kid to pull the journal for that fire, like you suggested. You failed to mention that the witches I saved you from were your parents. Gotta make a man wonder.”

Dolan carefully closed the cover of the journal, then leaned forward to set it on the table and lay the pen beside it. The small action was a welcome distraction from his deep uneasiness with the subject. But he didn’t dare lie, or keep silent– not if he wished to keep any part of this life he’d found unexpected fulfillment in.

“Yes, well. They may have been witches– but I wasn’t. I spent a great many years hating the Axe and the Cross for what happened to them, you’re correct in that much. I even dreamed at one point of taking up their cause and petitioning the Witch Queen to make me whole, once the world was hers once more.”

“At one point,” Kaulder repeated slowly. “When did that change?”

Dolan looked up at that; at the stillness of Kaulder’s posture, and the furrow forming on his brow. No weapons yet; not that the man needed them, but it seemed a cautiously positive sign. “In small ways, when I met Dolan the 36th,” he explained. “He was an easier man to respect than I’d been expecting.”

“Better man than most,” Kaulder agreed, lifting his glass in a half-salute and taking a sip.

“And the rest....” Dolan paused, watching the line of Kaulder’s throat as the other man swallowed. “When I began working with you.”

“What, because I was less of the boogeyman than you’d been expecting?” Kaulder asked, a sharp skepticism in the words. “That’s a quick change of heart.”

Dolan laughed humorlessly, linking his fingers together atop his knees to keep them from shaking. “No. Or– yes, but only in part. I saw what you were fighting _against_. I saw how you treated a witch who _wasn’t_ breaking the peace, even when she was being uncooperative. It made me do some... re-evaluation of my memories of my parents. And last but not least... I saw _you_ work magic.”

Kaulder’s expression had been impressively calm through Dolan’s explanation, but his eyes went wide at that, and the furrows on his brow deepened. “Me? Work _magic_? I’m as human as it gets, outside of the immortality. If you thought you saw me work a spell....”

“But that’s just it!” Dolan exclaimed, shifting forward in his seat. He really didn’t know why no one else had ever mentioned it. He could see Dolan the 36th perhaps noticing and choosing not to comment for Kaulder’s sake, just as he would now, but it had too many implications for his particular circumstances to leave it entirely unremarked.

“No one ever seems to notice, or talk about it if they do, probably because of the terms of the truce– no magic at all around humans. And so much of the Order’s early history, before we– before they– began recording your life has been lost to time’s fading. But I’ve _seen_ you casually work magic; activating and deactivating artifacts of power, carving runes into a candle with only a twist of your fingers, igniting your sword with that incandescent potion. You might not be able to shape it yourself, but you can _use_ what already exists. Which means....”

Kaulder’s eyes widened slightly in understanding, and some of the frozen tension in his shoulders visibly relaxed. “ _You_ can still have magic in your life without sacrificing everything else to get it,” he said.

“Yes,” he replied, simply.

The choice had probably cut closer than it ought, if he wanted to call himself a good man, but– _yes_. As a grieving child, he’d thought of his parents’ plans as some kind of noble calling, and imagined himself covered in glory for helping bring them about, every one of their friends who’d looked down on him and dismissed him for his own lack of power jealous of his position in the new world that would result. With an adult’s eyes... he’d looked upon the madness of the Witch Queen’s dedicants and felt a kind of horrified revulsion, not daring to revisit those old memories again for fear of what he’d see in them. And given the arrogance of Belial and his ilk... he had a long familiarity with bullies, and how they didn’t change.

The man seated across from him was not one of those bullies. Neither was Dolan the 36th, or Chloe– for all that he’d felt the sharp edge of her tongue a few times, it was more a sisterly sort of bickering, a joke he was expected to be in on rather than its butt. And he was closer to a true source of power here than he feared he ever would have been if he’d actually used the gun that he’d tucked in his waistband when they went to the church to stop the plague tree. Kaulder and his friends might lack grandiosity, but they had quality, and _substance_. Every new day seemed to bring him some new wonder to learn; from Kaulder’s past and hard-won skills, to the anecdotes Chloe let drop about the experiences of one who’d actually lived the life that had been denied him by an accident of genetics; to the older Dolan’s wisdom and gravitas. 

Kaulder nodded slowly at that, his gaze warming. “I get that,” he said, then quirked a wry grin. “You know I still gotta ask, though. Just to be clear.”

Dolan smiled back. “I know. No; I didn’t set up Dolan the 36th. And no, I didn’t call Belial to tell him about Chloe’s friend.”

“Good,” Kaulder replied, and then _smiled_ , a genuine smile that lit up his whole face and caught at Dolan’s breath. Okay, so there were other attractions to being on the side of continued peace on earth than simply being ‘good’; but those could wait. He might be young and naive, but not _that_ young and naive. He wasn’t one of the transitory beauties– of both genders– that the 36th had mentioned slipping through Kaulder’s life and bed like mist; he wanted his place here to last as long as Dolan the 36th’s had.

That was enough discussion for Kaulder, it seemed; if he had any more questions, they wouldn’t be asked tonight. He set down his drink, then got up and held out his hand for an armclasp of farewell. “See you tomorrow, then.”

“See you tomorrow,” Dolan replied, smiling helplessly back, palm tingling from the touch.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, if luck was with him– and why not? He had magic back in his life, just as he’d always wanted, if not quite as he’d expected. Who knew what wonders the world had yet to show him?

He picked up his journal from the table, and left for his own apartment with a song under his breath and dreams of strangling vines exchanged for a garden of hope in his heart.


End file.
